Chapter 11: Being There
It wasn't real…
It couldn't be real. It didn't feel real when Grandpa Max had told them about…
Her parents had never even mentioned wanting to have more children. When she was six she'd gone up and asked them to get her a baby brother and they'd just laughed. So when Grandpa Max had used the words 'lost the baby,' Gwen just couldn't accept it.
Not the de….
No, the other part. The part that led up to it. It didn't make sense.
They'd laughed. She thought back to it, and wondered for the first time if the laugh had been forced.
It didn't seem real even as Grandpa drove them through three states in a day. Grandpa tried to talk to her just before he started the long drive. She remembered hearing his voice, but not the words. She's already grabbed her spell books and spread them out in front of her on her bunk. She never even looked up from them as he talked to her.
And Ben didn't come anywhere near her. He spent the whole trip sitting up front next to Grandpa. He never even said a word.
It only seemed more dreamlike when they got home and she saw the car in her driveway. Not her Grandparent's big Lincoln. They could have just been visiting. But Aunt Sandra's minivan was there. And the only thing that would make Aunt Sandra come to see Gwen's parents was if the world was -
Gwen couldn't finish the thought. She rushed to and was out the side door before Grandpa Max even stopped the Rust Bucket. She heard Grandpa shout for her, but she ignored him as she ran for her front door. She pushed her front door open and froze in the doorway. Ben's mom was sitting on the couch, her arms around Gwen's mother. Even in the doorway Gwen could hear her mother sobbing into Aunt Sandra's shoulder.
"I'm so sorry," she heard Aunt Sandra whisper. From the crack in her voice Gwen knew it hadn't been the first time she'd said that.
Gwen stared at the two of them, her mind frozen. The two had never gotten along for as long as she could remember. Everyone talked about how bad she and Ben used to be, but she never once hated Ben. She wasn't sure if she could say the same about their moms. To see them like this. "Mommy?" she whispered.
"Gwen?" her mother said as she yanked her head up from Aunt Sandra's shoulder. Gwen took a half back when she saw her mother's face. It was pale as paper under the red hair, and both cheeks shone with tears. And her eyes, bloodshot eyes that went too wide when she saw her daughter. Her mom stood and rushed over. She nearly crushed Gwen with her hug and started rocking her back and forth. "Gwen," she whispered over and over.
Gwen stood there and hugged her mother back even though all she wanted to do was run away. She'd never seen her mother like this before, and she had no idea how to deal with it. Her father came around the corner, his own face as still as a mask, as he wrapped his arms around the two of them.
Her grandmother rescued her. Gwen hadn't even realized she was in the room until she heard her voice. "Come on, Lili, Frank," she said and put her hand on her daughter's shoulder. "She has to get ready."
"I know, Mom." Lili blinked and hugged Gwen tighter before she let go.
Gwen glanced at her grandmother and realized for the first time that everyone was wearing black. "Ready for what?"
Grandma Mary didn't answer. She just put her hand on Gwen's shoulder and lead her upstairs to her bedroom. There was a black dress and black suit waiting next to each other on her powder blue bedspread. Gwen swallowed hard and turned to look at her grandmother.
Nana gave her a long sad look, but all she said was, "We were just waiting for you to get home."
"What happened?" Gwen asked. Nana used a lot of words to say almost nothing. She used words like doctors, and did all they could. She said a lot, some of it more than once, but she never said anything more specific than that. Then she left.
Gwen didn't remember changing. Nana peeked in not long after to make sure she had before she dragged Ben in by his arm. He'd been grumbling something, but when he saw Gwen he went quiet. Grandmother said something to him, and he just nodded. She glared for a second longer before she finally let him go and far more gently took Gwen by the hand and led her downstairs.
No one talked in the car ride over. A priest said some words, but Gwen couldn't stop looking at the coffin. There was no way that it could be so small. She'd always pictured funerals – when she thought about them at all – like they were on TV. With six men carrying an ornate casket that was bigger than any of them to a prepared area while a band played and soldiers fired a salute.
She never imagined it would just be her grandfathers carrying a small box between them. Both of them were strong men. She didn't know anyone stronger than those two, but the small box was almost more than either could carry.
Even the headstone, a small marble block no bigger than a paperback book, seemed fake. Like a horrible joke.
It was a relief when she'd gotten back home. Finally, finally things were real again. Almost real. Seeing the Rust Bucket should have been a relief. The problem wasn't that Grandpa had parked it in the front yard, but that none of her neighbors were waiting at the door to complain.
And people in her neighborhood complained about everything.
Gwen didn't care. She was the first one out of the car. She ran up to the R.V. and touched it. The metal felt warm under her hand from the summer sun. Safe.
"Gwen?"
Gwen heard Nana call after her, but she didn't turn around. She knocked at the door and waited for Grandpa Max to let her in and take her anywhere that wasn't here. It took her a second to remember that he wasn't in there, that he was in the car with Ben and his parents. And she'd forgotten her key when she'd gotten changed. "I need to get something!" she said, rushing past her grandmother and father in a mad dash. Her only thought was to get to the key and get into the Rust Bucket.
She'd be safe when she was home.
She took the stairs two at a time and was at her bedroom door before anyone else even came into the house. Her hand reached the door knob, but she never made it into her room.
Instead she froze when she saw the door next to hers. It was the library, it had been a library for as long as she could remember. It was her second favorite room in the house. Her parents had collected thousands of books and Gwen lost days in there trying to read them all. Even the science fiction books that her father grumbled about whenever he saw her with one but that her mother loved.
It was a door she'd opened a thousand times. But it never, in all those times, had a huge yellow sun painted on it. She never would have missed it before if Grandma Mary hadn't been in such a hurry.
Gwen couldn't keep herself from going to the door. And she couldn't stop her heart from pounding in her ears as she opened it.
When she looked inside, all she saw was what was missing. The books were gone. Even the book cases were gone, all but one small one in the corner. The brick red paint that always made the room feel so warm was missing, replaced by a bright blue. And, worst of all, the couch that had been under the window, the couch that was the most comfortable couch ever made, was gone.
In its place was a crib.
The room blurred and stayed blurred no matter how much Gwen blinked. Six weeks. She'd only been gone six weeks. The room had been the library. She was only gone six weeks…. It should have been a library.
Not a…
Her feet felt like they weighed a ton. It was all she could do to shuffle towards the crib. She'd walked onto a prison world filled with the scum of the galaxy without even slowing her step, but now…
Now she just wanted to turn and run.
She didn't though. She had her hands wrapped around her stomach as she inched forward until she could finally look into the crib.
And there, for the briefest of seconds, she saw a small baby with bright red hair and a happy smile on his face. She was going to be his sister…
She blinked, and he was gone.
She should be crying, she thought. But she wasn't. She hadn't at all yet. Her insides felt like they were twisting around themselves and the room spun a little to the left. She actually thought she was going to be sick. But she still didn't leave. She didn't even look away.
And she still didn't cry.
She just stood there, barely even blinking, just in case the baby came back. For a minute, for a second, for forever.
He didn't.
She didn't know how long she stood there and stared into the empty crib. She stood there even as she heard her mother start crying again downstairs. She heard Grandpa Max say something in the soft tone that carried so far and could usually make her feel better no matter what.
It didn't.
She listened to the crying and bit down on her lip to keep from joining in. Not until she saw him again, anyway.
She heard Ben coming up the stairs. After all the months they'd spent together she knew his footsteps. It was something that had saved her from more than one prank. Except he usually didn't walk so softly. She didn't think Ben knew how to walk without stomping around like a giant lizard.
She heard him stop in the hall, and she figured he was looking for the bathroom. It had been years since he had visited. She didn't make a noise as she waited for him to walk past. She didn't want him to know she was in here. Didn't want to deal with Ben then. She didn't want to deal with anyone right then. If she did, then she would have to take her eyes off of the crib.
And she didn't want to miss seeing her brother again.
It was the last thing she wanted, but it was such a relief when Ben walked in. He came and stood so close to her that she felt the sleeve of his shirt against her bare arm. He didn't say a word, he didn't do anything to call attention to himself. It was almost enough to make her ask where the real Ben was.
Gwen held her breath as Ben leaned over a little and looked inside the crib. Maybe he would see…Maybe she could too, just one more time. Please.
Nothing.
Gwen let out a shuddering sigh and whispered, "Maybe it's for the best."
Ben's head shot up. She saw him through the corner of her eyes as his mouth twisted as though a dozen words were trying to get out at once, but he didn't say a single one of them. He just stared at her.
"He's better off," Gwen said into the silence. She swallowed hard and felt a sudden need to touch the crib, to feel the smooth grain under her palm. But her hand wouldn't cross the last half inch of space.
She didn't remember falling. The room seemed to sway again, and then she felt Ben grab her under her arms. He wasn't strong enough to stop her, but he was strong enough to keep her from getting hurt as she collapsed to the ground. She sat there and hugged her knees to her chin as she kept staring at the crib.
Ben's hand slipped from her back as he sat down next to her. "Gwen?" His voice cracked a little as he said her name. She saw his eyes go to the door and wondered if he was going to call for help.
"I would have been horrible - I would have been a horrible sister. I would have tried to run everything, ruin everything. I would have told him what to do, what not to do… I would have been a bossy little creep and he's better off."
Gwen could have dealt with insults. She would have been livid if he'd pulled out a tape recorder and played her words back to her. She would have chased him around the house and screamed at him and it would have been okay because that's what they did. It was what she was waiting for him to do. What she needed him to do to make things normal again.
"You would have been a great sister."
And the last bit of normal left her.
"IF I WAS A GREAT SISTER I WOULD HAVE SAVED HIM!"
Ben leaned back a little, his eyes wide.
And then the anger left as soon as it came, and Gwen's head dropped. "Did you see the tombstone?" Gwen didn't have to close her eyes to see the off white thing, or the lie on it. "Beloved son and brother. How could they… I didn't even know he existed! I didn't love him…" Her voice broke as the room spun around her again. "If I loved him, I would have saved him."
Gwen had tried. She'd spent the entire trip home hiding on her bunk and studying her spell books. She even went through the charms that freaked her out just to look at. But she couldn't find anything. If she really loved her brother, if she was as smart as everyone said, she knew she would have.
But she didn't.
Finally her eyes burned and she felt the first tear itch its way down her cheek. She shoved her hands to her eyes as she started sobbing. She hated crying, and hated it even more when Ben caught her doing it. She just knew that he would laugh at her for acting like a girl.
She jumped when she felt Ben's arm go around her. She pulled away out of instinct and she felt him freeze for a moment and she knew that he almost let her. But then he pulled her against him. She didn't even know she was shaking until his arm tightened around her. She felt the heavy mass of the Omnitrix against her back but even that seemed warm as she buried her face in his shoulder and cried into his shirt.
"I always wanted a little brother. I always wanted one - I used to ask Santa - All the things I can do, all the things I've learned to do and I couldn't save him…"
"What could you have done?"
"I don't know," Gwen admitted in a whisper so low that she thought she imagined saying the words.
Ben heard her anyway. She heard him swallow hard. "Grey Matter would have known."
Gwen stopped crying then. She stopped so fast that she hiccuped. She pushed away from Ben and turned to face him as his hand dropped to his lap. His hand brushed against the Omnitrix as he looked at the crib. She swallowed and really looked at him for the first time that day. His face was almost a mirror of hers. Not that he had been crying, but his eyes looked as empty as she had felt since she found out.
"He would have known," Ben said. His head dropped. "A real hero would have saved him."
And she knew, that all the time she spent in sitting up by Grandpa he hadn't been avoiding her, that he'd been doing the exact same thing as her. He looked at the crib and looked so old in the dim light coming through the curtain. Not eleven at all. And she couldn't stand to see him hurt like that. "There wasn't anything you could do."
He shrugged and looked at her. "Or you."
"I know," Gwen whispered as her eyes went to the crib. It felt like she was saying goodbye, and she didn't want to. Not yet. "I always wanted a brother."
"You still have me." Ben didn't look at her as he mumbled those words.
She laughed. "Please, Dweeb, I've spent too much time trying to forget you're related to me to ever think of you as my brother." Even as she said the words her hand found his and squeezed down.
"You would have been a great sister," he said and squeezed back, "but I would have been an even more awesome cousin."
"First time for everything," Gwen said and stuck her tongue out at him.
Ben sort of smiled and did the same right back at her.
Normal. Finally something normal, she thought as she squirmed around to sit closer to Ben. The two sat there, looking at the crib in silence. A more comfortable one. It still felt hard to breathe, and harder to think, but it wasn't as bad.
She squeezed Ben's hand just a little harder.
Gwen leaned her head onto his shoulder and even closed her eyes for a moment. Until she felt Ben shift away from her, though he didn't let go of her hand. Her eyes popped open. He wasn't pulling away, though. He was reaching for something on the floor.
A little blue teddy bear.
It was sitting on the floor next to a dresser than Gwen missed when she came into the room. Even from the floor Gwen could see a zoo's worth of stuffed animals on it. A zoo minus one. Ben finally managed to grab the bear and started to stretch again to put it back on the dresser.
"Dad said they're going to give everything away."
Ben's arm froze in mid-reach and he gave her a look like he thought he'd just done something wrong.
"Dad said - When we were riding back, Dad said to Papa that they were going to give it all away. That mom didn't want to be reminded every time she walked down the hall."
"What about you?"
Gwen felt herself shiver again and looked down at the floor.
"Would she - would you mind if I took it?"
Gwen blinked and her emerald eyes searched his. It wasn't much of a bear. It wasn't even as big as the one he slept with sometimes and would every now and then let her borrow just so she couldn't say anything."Why?"
Ben's only answer was an uncomfortable shrug.
"Okay," Gwen said with one small nod. "She probably won't even notice."
Ben held the bear up in front of him. It was a tiny thing, barely bigger than his hand. Ben twisted his fingers and made the bear wave at the two of them. Gwen almost smiled.
And then he put the bear on her knee.
Gwen started. The bear almost rolled off of her before she grabbed it and tried to give it back to him. "You wanted it."
He pushed the bear back to her. "Yeah. For you."
Gwen didn't answer. She couldn't answer. She just stared at the bear's black button eyes.
"Take it, Gwen," Ben said. "You need something to remember your brother."
"Kenneth," Gwen said. It was the first time she said his name. It was the first time she could even bring herself to say his name.
"Ken," Ben corrected. "Ken Tennyson."
"Ken Tennyson," Gwen repeated and hugged the bear. "It's a good name."
"Yeah."
Gwen set the bear down next to her and looked up at the top of the dresser. She got up and scooted around Ben, but the top of it was just out of reach. She froze for a long moment before she could make herself let go of his hand. She scooped up a stuffed lion and sat back down. Her right hand went back to his even as she held out the toy with her left. "You should remember him, too."
Ben smiled as he took the lion and he squeezed down on her hand.
There were no more words after that. They just sat side by side in the empty room.